


Flowers for I-Chaya

by Neferit



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Community: st_xi_kink, Family, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, Mild mental retardation, Multi, Romance, Science Experiments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-02
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-30 12:36:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neferit/pseuds/Neferit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The child of two worlds, Spock, has hard childhood - not for being half-human, but for not being as smart as his peers given some rather unlucky twist of his genetical make-up. But given opportunity, every single of his peers is put in the shadow of his brilliance. How long will the experiment last?</p><p>Inspired by kmeme prompt and Flowers for Algernon.</p><p>Posted in style of short journal-like entries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sad and Silent

**Author's Note:**

> So, I had been browsing through the old ST XI kink meme prompts and in part two I found this amazing prompt:  
>  _Kirk/Spock, a drug or illness causes Spock's mind to deteriorate and he loses his intelligence along with his control over his emotions._  
>  And I thought “hey, Flowers for Algernon anyone?”
> 
> I’m sorry, probably-long-gone-OP-anon, that I am not really following the prompt you gave – this is what came from it.

  
They always call me an abomination and mother is sad. I do not quite understand why she is sad or what abomini.. abominition, no, a-bo-mi-na-tion is and father never tells.

  
Father is never sad. I think he’s never anything. Every time I look at him he looks completely the same, but his brows – they are the only thing about him that changes – up, down, up, down. When I do something what makes mother smile, only raises his eyebrows, when something what makes mother scowl or cry happens, the eyebrows are down – tiny, tiny bit from where they normally are, but I know.

  
Apart from mother and father and some other Vulcans (they always start to act strange when I walk around – I may not be as smart as them are, but I still know what is happening around) there is one more member of our household.

  
A sehlat of name I-Chaya.

      
I like him. They wanted to kill him for not being “properly developed” when he was born, but I stole him before they could do it and fought them when they tried to take him away. I was feeding him when he was still a little cub, kept him warm at all times and we are friends. He is my best friend, even if the servants say that it’s i-lo-gi-cal t have ‘friends’, as well as placing pre-fe-ren-ces on it.

  
“You’re just stupid Earther!” sounds from behind me. I sigh. Almost every day when I walk from the school where I learn how to write, read and count (I’m learning how to do that properly – my mother argued with father at length for me to be allowed to have the same options as other boys of my age), three (one, two, yes, three) boys start to follow me, throwing in-sul-ting words at me. ‘Earther’ is the first one they ever used (when I told mother, she started crying and father’s eyebrows des-cen-ded slightly), and they sometimes say things like ‘barbarian’ or ‘Terran’. Or is it ‘terrain’?

  
One day, when Sofek (one of the boys who follow me) says it’s un-der-stand-da-ble I’m an idiot, when my pet sehlat is idiot and my mother is human. That I never will be true Vulcan. I remembered tears of my mother – and when Sopek throws a stone at me, saying my mother is ‘whore’ (I do not know what it means – but it has to be something bad, because Sofek, Sopek or Stark would never say anything nice about her), I jump at the closest one and hit him in the face.

  
Father is not looking pleased when I am brought home. My lip hurts from hit I took from Stark, mother carefully cleans where it’s bleeding. “Spock, darling, why did you get into fight?” she asks. “He said you are terrain… _Terran_ ,” I correct myself, “whore.”

  
She fells completely silent and her eyes are full of tears. Father says nothing, just his eyebrows move down a bit before he’s called away by a servant. He got a call, if I understood it cor-rect-ly. Mother held me close to her, caressing my hair. I liked to be held like that.  She and I-Chaya had been the only ones who allowed me to be that close to them.

  
Father returns and tells me to go to my room. I hear mother’s raised voice, slamming doors and the next day, when I get up, mother tells me I’m not going to school anymore. The call from yesterday was by Stark’s father, who complained – and I was banned from school, because I’m ag-gres-si-ve (that means I’m attacking everything and everyone around, I looked that up later). When Sopek, Sofek and Stark see me next time, they added another bad word. They call me ‘failure.’

  
Mother is sad. Father says nothing.


	2. New Hope

I almost fall into the small lake mother insist on having in the gardens when her voice calls for me. I try to look as serious as father always does – but it does not come easy to me, not after all those years. I run to the house – I know it’s not logical, as father would say, to needlessly spend energy. But I like the way air flows around me when I run.

There are some strange men in company of my parents; human and Vulcan. Mother says they are healer Sorel and Doctor Corrigan, that they were the one who made me possible. I do not understand what she means – I could be im-pos-sib-le without these two?

“Spock,” says Doctor Corrigan, smiling at me. Only mother smiles at me and part of me quickly likes him. He’s from Earth, just like my mother, and I think he likes me back. Healer Sorel nods my way. I kind of like him, too. He’s Vulcan – but his eyes look friendly, instead of that unflinching neutral stare most of the Vulcans have when they look at me. His eyes then return to my parents, and he talks about something.

 

Ex-pe-ri-ment.

  
I do not understand what that means and I feel a bit silly – so I come after mother, reaching for her hand. Father looks at me with brows down but I do not care right now. Mother’s hand is soft in mine, and when I look up to her, she gives me a small smile and nudges me towards doctor Corrigan.

   
“Tell me, Spock, would you like to be smart?” he asks. I do not know how he could make me smart. Idiots will always be idiots, and failures will always be failures, Sopek said. I’m not sure if I want – I look at my parents. Mother looks ho-pe-full. Father looks like he always looks.

   
“Will I-Chaya be smart, too?” I ask. They say it will be possible. So I nod. Maybe I finally will not be a failure, mother won’t be sad and father will say something.

   
They take me and I-Chaya with them that very day.


	3. First Round

When we arrive to somewhere – they do not tell me where the ‘somewhere’ is – they let me unpack my things and take me and I-Chaya to another room.

 

It’s big and white and empty. Only three chairs and a desk are there. They say I’m to be tested first and I can’t help but feel sad. Every time someone puts tests on me, they start to act strange, mother cries, father’s eyebrows are lower and the servants whisper between themselves, stopping only when I come near.

 

Doctor Corrigan gives me some pictures, asking me what I see in them. I’m scared that if I don’t tell him right, he and Healer Sorel will think me failure and I will never get the chance to be smart. I want to be smart. I want mother smiling and father saying something.

 

But all I can see in the pictures are the ink splotches.

 

I try to look at them from different angles – but they still look like splotches. “It looks like ink splotch,” I say.

 

Doctor Corrigan and Healer Sorel look at each other before the Doctor shows me another picture. “Ink splotch,” I say again. Again. And again.

 

Then they present me pictures of people. Two Vulcans looking at each other. Three Terrans laughing – mother laughed sometimes, but not too often. Animals. Vulcan woman playing lyre. Terran woman in a golden robe, one of her hands on her chest, the other one raised in front of her.

 

“Tell me about the people in the pictures, Spock,” said Doctor. I gulped audibly. Whenever the Teacher tried to create poems with rest of the class, I never came up with anything – much to my classmates’ a-mu-se-ment. And we had more than few pictures to create with.

 

“I do not know anything about these people, Doctor,” I say. “I would be lying, if I said anything about them. Vulcans do not lie.”

 

They continue with testing some more days. I do not know how long. Every time they say it’s enough tests for one day, I curl next to I-Chaya.

 

I wish mother was here. She would know what to say.


	4. Mazes

The next day I think I'm better prepared, thinking about the stories to these people all night. I was telling them to I-Chaya, his growl sounded like agreement to me when I asked him, if the stories are good.

But the doctors just take me and I-Chaya to some completely different building. The walls are all white and it looks like a hospital in the Earth movies mother watches sometimes. Then we come to some doors with "start" written on them and Healer Sorel says I-Chaya stays here and Doctor Corrigan takes me to other doors. There is "start" written on them as well.

"Doctor Corrigan?" I ask. "What do I do in there?"

And Doctor Corrigan told me. So, they led me and I-Chaya to two separate mazes. Maze is a place where there are many corners and corridors and it's very difficult to find your way through it. I walked inside and there was much white colour. So much it made me a bit uneasy, because it made searching for my way through difficult.

I was there for very, very long time and still couldn't find my way. I wanted to sit on the ground and cry. I wanted mother and I-Chaya and not this maze – but then an image of my mother with sad but ho-pe-full expression on her face came to my mind and I continued. I need to be strong. I need to find my way, so I would be smart and mother would be proud.

And then I finally came across doors with "Finish" on them.

Doctor says that I-Chaya had been out of his maze for hours, which makes me a bit sad that I-Chaya is smarter. But maybe un-de-ve-lo-ped at birth sehlats are smarter than normal ones?

The maze happens several more times. I'm getting better I think – I write it in the log Healer Sorel presented me with, to write 'report on my progress'. I think it's a bit silly, because I do not think there was much progress – sorry, Healer Sorel, if you are reading this!

I-Chaya does not have to write anything – he's sleeping most of the time we are not tested. I'm tired, too, but I do not need as much rest as he does, so I write in the report. I like the PADD – it corrects some of my wrongly written words.

I almost forgot – Doctor Corrigan visited us some time ago. He said we (meaning me and I-Chaya) will have 'the surgery' tomorrow.

Does that mean we will be smart?


End file.
